Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid has dropped out of jury duty at this year’s Marseille Film Festival after several filmmakers set to screen films at the fest withdrew their films to protest Lapid’s presence as part of a cultural boycott of Israel.
The festival criticized the planned boycott this afternoon in a statement, noting that Lapid has been one of the most consistent critics of Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.
“Distinctive voices which, like that of Nadav Lapid, strive to think through the specific violence of the state and society of Israel should on the contrary be welcomed and listened to, even if their narratives are then challenged or deconstructed,” the statement read.
Lapid has been in exile in France for many years, and his last feature, Yes (2025), is a biting satire of Israel’s ruling class set after the October 7 attacks. However, the film received partial funding from the Israeli Film Fund, which has led some critics to argue that the filmmaker is complicit in the Israeli government’s actions and that he falls within the bounds of any cultural boycotts of the country.
In response to the proposed boycott, hundreds of France’s leading film figures signed an open letter in support of Lapid. The letter was published in Le Monde this afternoon and features signatories such as Natalie Portman, Jacques Audiard, and Justine Triet.
The open letter reads: “That Israel’s greatest dissident artist who tirelessly denounces the fascist and colonialist tendencies of his government and its criminal moral failings in films that have won awards worldwide, should be forced to withdraw from a French festival should alarm us and mobilize us beyond this absurdity. It should alert us to the obvious truth: whatever crimes their state may commit, no one can be reduced to a passport.”
Lapid endorsed the open letter in a statement to the French news agency AFP. Euronews reports that the filmmakers who pulled their films from Marseille over Lapid’s presence defended their boycott in a statement, saying they aim to work “against an approved colonial and genocidal reality.”